Virtual reality is a human-computer interface that artificially creates a specific environment or situation and enables a human, who is using virtual reality, to feel as if he or she were interacting with an actual surrounding situation or an actual environment. The term virtual reality is used interchangeably with the terms artificial reality, cyberspace, virtual worlds, virtual environment, synthetic environment, and artificial environment.
The purpose of use of virtual reality is to enable a human to view and manipulate an environment that is difficult to experience in an everyday situation without directly experiencing it as if he or she were present in the environment. Application fields of virtual reality include education, remote manipulation, remote satellite surface exploration, exploration data analysis, and scientific visualization.
Recently, as smartphones have become popularized, virtual reality has attracted attention again. Representative examples of virtual reality include Gear VR, which was manufactured by Samsung in association with Oculus, LG's “G3 VR,” and Google's Cardboard. These products can interact with smartphones to thus enable virtual reality to be experienced, and the prices thereof are cheaper than those of existing VR devices.